passives

[Louise Cornelis <Louise -dot- Cornelis -at- LET -dot- RUU -dot- NL>]

Hi,

I have been following the two recent discussions about the passive on
the Technical Writing List (one in february and one just recently) with
great interest. I am doing a PhD project on the passive which aims to
provide some sensible and practical advices for the use and the function
of the passive. Although the project is still in its initial phase and none
of my ideas have been tested yet, I think I might have something to add
to your discussion. I hope I can still do that - that you're not sick
and tired of passives by now. My work is on the Dutch passive, and there
are some
differences, but the following applies to both languages.

The most important characteristic by which you can tell the passive is
that the agent (or actor, causer or initiator of the action) is NOT the
(grammatical) subject, but may or may not appear in a by-phrase, and
that there is a roughly equivalent active counterpart in which it is
subject. So, if you have `The carrot was eaten', you can add `by the
rabbit', which is the agent, and you also have `The rabbit ate the carrot'.
The most important function of the passive (its main contribution to
`style', so to say), has everything to do with this characteristic: the
passive demotes or backgrounds the agent. This can often be very
useful, for example because it is of no interest to mention the agent, or
because you don't know him/her, or because the agent is a vague and
general entity (`it is often said that...').

It can also be useful because you want to background the agent in favor
of another participant (the grammatical object of the active counterpart
sentence, often called the patient or undergoer). If you want to write
about the carrot and not about the rabbit, the passive can be quite handy
(`The carrot was eaten'). However, there are often alternative ways to
foreground the other particpant, or at least to keep the participants in the
same order. For example, `John was followed by Bob' can also be
expressed as `John preceded Bob'. This is what I would recommend if you
want to try to avoid the passive, but if you don't want to Hollywood
personal trainer sound either: try to find verbs that can rougly express
the same content. It's not easy, though, I'll be the first to admit
that...

There are passives with and without the `by'-phrase for the agent, but
the difference between them is only relative: you can use the by-phrase
to mention the agent when it is not a suitable participant to become
subject. This is often the case if you want to introduce a new participant
(John was followed by Bob, who tried to get hold of him in order to...
etc.).

The most important thing to remember if you try to form an opinion
(your own or other people's) passives WITHOUT by-phrase is that
although the agent is not mentioned, it is still implicitly present. The
passive ALWAYS evokes the idea of an agent. This can be useful, as I
mentioned above, but in other cases, this is not what you want. And
even if they are useful, an abundant use of passives may leave your
reader wonder who this silent and implicit agent, whose presence is
presupposed but also in a way denied, is. It can also be very confusing
if you use a number of passives with different implicit agents, and the
reader is left to guess which agent you mean in each individual case.
And, of course, you should be aware of politicians who say that
mistakes were made, yes. I don't think passives are to blame, though,
it's the people using them.

Another thing to remember is that the agent in active sentences often
functions as the reference point, the one whose viewpoint you take. In
the passive, you withhold the agent this function, sometimes in favor of
somebody else's viewpoint, but sometimes with no alternative viewpoint.
Using passives too much makes the reader wonder whose viewpoint
he/she should identify with. On the other hand, you can use the passive
in order to background the participants you don't want to be identified
with.

This leads me to my last point: you can use the passive in order to put
agents in the right position that are no `proper' agents. For example, `He
was hit by lightning' is better than `Lightning hit him', because
lightning is only `sort of' an agent: it is not a responsible or volitional
causer of the event (this is an idea of the linguist Scott Delancey, thanks
are due to him). Likewise, if you write a computer manual, it is better to
background the COMPUTER (or the programm) by phrasing its actions
in passives than the USER. So you get `After you have chosen the right
option, the programm manager window will be displayed/opened' rather
than `After the right option is chosen, Windows will display the pro-
gramm manager window'. At least that is what I would recommend.
(again, this idea is not just mine, thans to Stephen Bernhardt for this).

Most literature on the passive is either a little overoptimistic (there is
nothing wrong with it), or it says that the passive should be eliminated
(yeah, that's a great greeting, I think I'll quote that in my dissertation!),
but I would say that if you use it well, it is a very nice and helpful
construction. It shouldn't be overused, though.

A really good article on the passive, especially on the role of the
implicit agent, is one by Arie Verhagen in Cognitive Linguistics (3,
1992, pl. 301-342). However, it is on passives in Dutch, and there the
backgrounding of the agent is often a bit more obtrusive than in English.
Thompson, Sandra A. (1987) `The Passive in English: A Discourse
Perspective', in: Robert Channon and Linda Shockey (eds.) In Honor of
Ilse Lehiste. Ilse Lehiste Puhendusteos. Dordrecht: Foris. Pp. 497-512 is
on English and gives some good ideas as well. I myself am now prepa-
ring a paper on the passive in computer manuals, so you may hear more
about that in the future.


Louise Cornelis


Louise Cornelis
Centre for Language and Communication
Department of Dutch
Trans 10
3512 JK  Utrecht
The Netherlands
Tel. 030-536012